Fansubbing, is it really what it is?

These days, fansubbers take time off their free time, and work tirelessly for the people to enjoy animes so that they don't have to wait 6 months for bandai/funimation to bring it into their country, or in many cases (US != the world, unfortunately), bringing animes to places where the latest animes is Fruit basket or something similar (I come from one such country).

Unfortunately, fansubbing today, in general, isn't exactly "fans subbing for fans".

Why?

First of all, the second "fans", otherwise known more commonly as "leeches". I prefer to call them "supporters", but what the hell.

While there are many out there who are very appriciative of the works fansubbers do, there are many more out there who moan, cry and do just about everything else when a release is delayed. They grow impatient, they swear, they beg, they cry, they keep asking "WHEN IS IT DONE?", when the fansubbers themselves are trying hard to balance life and fansubbing.

And even it's done, the complaints don't stop there. People complain about subs going too fast, poor encode (when they can't tell the difference from a poor raw and poor encode 80% of the time), and poor grammar because the team used "she is" instead of "she's".

The complaining never stops.

Why?

I feel that the leeches are too pampered in this world of fast internet. Back in the old times with 1.5mbit being considered "wow", and the majority of the world using 56k, fansubbing is something which everyone respected, because it is difficult download the goods, and much more difficult for things to work on. With people obtaining 24mbit lines and even unmetered gigabyte lines, animes can be obtained within minutes, watched, and tossed away in a time which is far shorter than the time needed to put the release together.

[Alok Edit]
And before that things were done on VHS, (you know those big black things,) and the equipment necessary for that was really expensive, in the advent of digisubing fansubbing costs have come down, back then you would have to have the tapes mail ordered, these days you can download it all for free.
Ref: Fansubbing on Wiki
and my favorite guide on fansubbing (its old now, but still a classic): digisub guide
[/Edit]

But however, coming back to the argument of being pampered, leeches today expect, no, demand, anime at the snap of their fingertips. They want it now, they want it fast. They want it perfect, so they can burn it into their DVD collections. Hence, you see complaints of "poor karaoke", "poor typesetting" and all that crap.

The expectations of fansubbing these days is that if you don't do a perfect job, you suck. Never mind that all they do is talk and criticise.

But is the fault lying solely on the leeches?

To be honest, I think not.

Fansubbers are to blame too.

To some fansubbers, they do this for "honour" and "glory". They like to announce their contributions all over the internet in every forum they can find, with words such as "Yeah, well, thank me for encoding this episode, or you won't get to watch it this quickly. Hehe."

Fansubbing has turned into a "Who's who" game to some.

They want that recogniation of being somebody in this vast majority of people in the internet, never mind it is not known in real life. They take on a billion projects, nevermind that they got very limited staff, or that they have a million unfinished jobs.

They just want to be known.

What's worse, some fansubbers "punish" leeches who complain by withholding releases and dropping projects (or at least, threaten to drop them, as you sometimes see on Tosho). They act all mighty and big in their channels, a world they can dominate in front of their 32 inch plasma monitor screen.

It's stupid really. What some fansubbers don't see, is that without fans, they are NOTHING. Who downloads their releases so that can jack off while they see the leeching numbers increase? Fans. Who are the ones going into the channel, allowing it to hit X? Fans.

Yet, they don't care. In their channel, it's their turf. They do whatever they want. People say things they don't like, kick ban bai. During times before release time, they will moderate the channel and spoil everything, or taunt the fans.

Just about every silly thing which makes them feel that they are in a "dominating" position.

Of course, there's this "war" thing going between some teams. We honestly do things for fun, because unlike other leeches who whine and whine when something is delayed, we pick it up, and DO it, so we can watch it.

Of course, unfortunately, this makes groups angry. So angry that they want to shoot us in the face (fansubbers will find it hard to buy good insurance, I think. Mine just got cancelled). Unfortunately, they fail to see how this is a much better solution for us other than us whining. They call us vultures, and other funny bird names and whatever.

But really, have they ever thought why we are forced to do this? Do they think it's EASY to make an episode? And frankly, I've got so many more better things to do than to start a "war".

Hence, the attitute of the leeches, the fansubbers, and the relationships between fansubbers, has degraded fansubbing quite a bit. Fansubbing is now seen as the alternative to buying DVDs, when it should have had been just to raise awareness of an anime. Many animes such as Shakugan No Shana, Utawarerumono and Haruhi, just to name a few, will never be as popular as they are without fansubbing. Yet, everyone is looking at fansubbing at a different thing now.

It's no longer about "fans subbing for fans".

It has come down to the individual. What they want, what they demand, and whatever kick they get while fansubbing.